Words were not just words in my father’s house they had weight and character and were not to be placed on a page thoughtlessly.
He thought about them differently than I do with a designer’s eye not a poet’s but he loved them just as much.
Words and letters serifs and sans leading and kerning bold condensed points and picas
I was born into this. my baby book was a California job case.
When he died his house was filled with so many words type books old jobs layouts proofs stats and a bag of wooden type old and mildewed. Mostly his initials – Ws and Ks with a smattering of others I guess he liked.
They used to live in his office; a few I remember from walls or shelves in the house where I grew up. A tall and sleek J I always liked rich with wood grain sat dejected in the bottom of the bag.
I spent a good part of a day cleaning my father’s letters brushing and washing and oiling them till they looked as I remembered them so many years ago.
Despite the lack of vowels they speak to me murmuring stories from the past a physical manifestation of one of my father’s many voices frozen in wood
backwards.
A natural history photo editor by day, John Kaprielian has been writing poetry for over 35 years. He has been published in The Five-Two Poetry Blog, Down in the Dirt, New Verse News, and Minute Magazine. He lives in Putnam County, NY with his wife, teenage son, and assorted pets.
